last updated:01 Feb 2003 15: 58 Webword time, or 01 Feb 2003 20:58 UK time
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(Comments added for week ending Sun 26 Jan 2003) | View Other Weeks
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| WebWord Comment | Sun 26 Jan |
| News That Comes to You is a good article about RSS written by J.D. Lasica. Most people tend to think of RSS feeds as being for normal text content, such as blog postings. However, RSS feeds can be used in other ways. For example, why not use RSS feeds to keep customers aware of new products and services? We are doing something like this with Trodos RSS feeds. You can subscribe to see when new items are added to Trodo. Pretty cool, eh? As far as I know, no one else is using RSS in this way. Most people are stuck thinking about RSS as being for news only. Too bad. |
| Sun 26 Jan 12:56 | rd | This looks like a solution for automatically distributing Press Releases. Imagine a plugin for Word which, at the press of a
button, automatically pushes the press release to the RSS feed. Can RSS feeds have attachments? |
| Sun 26 Jan 13:06 | Jon Stevens | I use RSS to distribute information about my night club events. I make sure to include flyer images and other important data about the event. Given that that is our 'product'... Anyway, using RSS for this has definitely been done before. |
| Sun 26 Jan 14:19 | AndyEd | RSS 2.0 has a facility for enclosures, which could distribute .doc.
Uzilla LLC has a RSS feed btw.
http://uzilla.net/uzilla/blog/rss.xml |
| Sun 26 Jan 15:48 | Chris Hanson | I've had RSS for my company's press releases for a couple months.
http://bdistributed.com/press/rss.xml |
| Sun 26 Jan 23:37 | Anonymous journo | Please don't send press releases as .doc files.
Many journalists don't have Word.
The coding screws up all the content managements systems, has nothing to do with proprietary newspaper software such as Atex, and is generally a pain in the butt. Since it's not free and not useful, it's often not even on newsroom computers.
I appreciate plain text press releases I can read in email. |
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| Getting to the Top of an Internet Search | Mon 20 Jan |
| Now job seekers and other individuals are being offered similar ways to raise their Web profiles — for a fee. At least two online career services, for example, now offer job candidates some sort of listing enhancement. ... Kristin Hunavy, whose résumé came up first in a list of 2,348 search results for a systems administrator in the New York area, said she had paid $40 for a Careerbuilder upgrade because she had been getting no responses from employers. (MadMan comments: I think job sites are a complete waste of time compared to proper networking. Tell me about your experiences with job sites.) |
| Sun 26 Jan 19:00 | Adam Greenfield | With all due respect to those who have, I personally think that by the time you even submit your resume to one of these services, you've lost the game.
If you think your resume is somehow going to leap out from the towering stack...well, let's just say I don't think it happens often.
Use your personal networks! Use 'em! They've never yet failed me. |
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| Sept. 11 Panel Faces Several Pressures | Wed 22 Jan |
| Sen. Jon Corzine, D-N.J., and some of the victims relatives say they doubt the commission can do a thorough job with only the $3 million authorized by Congress. (Comments: Huh? Only $3 million to do this investigation? Shit, it cost at least $4.4 million to investigate Clinton. This just doesnt smell right to me.) |
| Wed 22 Jan 23:48 | John S. Rhodes | Silly me, it cost $52 million to investigate Clinton. |
| Thu 23 Jan 02:30 | Mac | Cost of Gulf War I : $61 billion |
| Thu 23 Jan 06:31 | MadMan | Damn you, investigating the wonderful adventures of the First Penis is much more important than a few thousand ordinary citizens' lives! |
| Thu 23 Jan 06:47 | Mac | |
| Thu 23 Jan 09:21 | Fritz | The last thing the federal government wants is for the truth to be known.
The last thing the American public wants to know is the truth. |
| Thu 23 Jan 14:00 | Mac | Forget the investigation, it will only be a whitewash anyway.
Why not save a few lives and stop this war before it starts. |
| Thu 23 Jan 16:59 | MadMan | (sing to the tune of 'When you're happy and you know it')
If you cannot find Osama, bomb Iraq.
If the markets are a drama, bomb Iraq.
If the terrorists are frisky,
Pakistanis looking shifty,
North Korea is too risky,
Bomb Iraq.
If we have no allies with us, bomb Iraq.
If we think someone has dissed us, bomb Iraq.
So to hell with the inspections,
Let's look tough for the elections,
Close your mind and take directions,
Bomb Iraq.
It's 'pre-emptive non-aggression', bomb Iraq.
Let's prevent this mass destruction, bomb Iraq.
They've got weapons we can't see,
And that's good enough for me
'Cos it's all the proof I need
Bomb Iraq.
If you never were elected, bomb Iraq.
If your mood is quite dejected, bomb Iraq.
If you think Saddam's gone mad,
With the weapons that he had,
(And he tried to kill your dad),
Bomb Iraq.
If your corporate fraud is growin', bomb Iraq.
If your ties to it are showin', bomb Iraq.
If your politics are sleazy,
And hiding that ain't easy,
And your manhood's getting queasy,
Bomb Iraq.
Fall in line and follow orders, bomb Iraq.
For our might knows not our borders, bomb Iraq.
Disagree? We'll call it treason,
Let's make war not love this season,
Even if we have no reason,
Bomb Iraq. |
| Thu 23 Jan 17:16 | Name that tune | Who wrote that song? It sounds like a Capitol Steps number. |
| Thu 23 Jan 17:18 | Name that tune | Nevermind. Google and ye shall receive. Common Dreams cites John Robbins as the author. |
| Sun 26 Jan 07:48 | Mac | 'I am not persuaded of the case for war. We have not had much evidence. I don't think Saddam is necessarily the right target.'
MAJOR-GENERAL JULIAN THOMPSON, Falklands War commander
'Inspection is a better way of disarming than bombing. It has not been shown there is any near-term threat from Iraq to Europe or beyond. War may lead to a situation worse than the one we have now.'
SIR TIMOTHY GARDEN, former air chief marshal
'I would not want to lead my troops into battle unless I was totally convinced of its just cause. So far, this does not seem to be the case.'
GENERAL SIR MICHAEL ROSE
'If we are talking about war, I think it is disproportionate. I don't think Saddam, though very nasty internally, is danger enough to be worth a war.'
SIR MICHAEL QUINLAN, former permanent secretary at the Ministry of Defence
'I've real concerns with any war. Since 9/11 there seems to be a link between Iraq and terrorism that politicians have allowed to grow despite there being no evidence. Will any conflict make the region safer? I don't think so.'
JOHN NICHOL, former RAF officer captured by Iraq in the last Gulf War
'We shouldn't go to war. Since troops returned home in 1991, 558 have died as a result of Gulf War syndrome. For the past ten years British and American planes have been using uranium-coated bombs on the Iraqis. Now we want to send troops there?'
JAMES MOORE, Gulf Veterans' Association |
| Sun 26 Jan 13:53 | Tom - Attack Iraq | I see.
We shouldn't attack Iraq, although Hussein has killed thousands of his own people, although people who've escaped (they do have to ESCAPE from Iraq, you know - they aren't free to leave on their own) have told about Hussein and his thugs imprisoning, torturing and killing Kurds and others with glee. Though he's killed his own brothers-in-law after enticing them to return back to Iraq.
That's okay, you say, we shouldn't kill him. We shouldn't end his brutal reign. Just leave him be as long as he doesn't kill us.
Of course, it was okay to invade Somalia, it was okay to invade Haiti, it was okay to invade Kosovo (although all the tyrants in each of those countries was a great pretender compared to Iraq).
Oh, wait. During these invasions, we had a democratic president surrounded by his team of socialist-wanna-bes at the time. So, anything he did was okay since he was on YOUR team.
Don't pretend that those of you who oppose attacking Iraq do so than for any other reason than because it would make our president politically weaker and more likely to lose to a democrat in 2004. No one spoke up when even Clinton in 1998 proposed attacking Iraq (of course, he never followed through with it - everyone knew at the time it was an empty threat.)
Those of you who say 'stop the war', how then do you propose dealing with Hussein? Just leave him alone? Diplomatically? Give me a break. You have no courage and you don't deserve to live in freedom if you are unwilling to fight for it.
For some rebuttals to the typical leftist, vague implications that you post here, try these:
http://www.suntimes.com/output/steyn/cst-edt-steyn26.html
And this from a self-confessed former leftist, who finally saw the light of day;
http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/horowitz1.asp
http://www.nationalreview.com/hanson/hanson012403.asp |
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| WebWord Comment | Sun 26 Jan |
| Tomo Maenos usability article is in Japanese. That means that I cant read it. Maybe you can. Enjoy! |
| Sun 26 Jan 11:20 | Adam Greenfield | A hundred articles on usability are written in or translated into Japanese every year, and a hundred of them are ignored.
Throw this one on the heap. |
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| WebWord Comment | Tue 21 Jan |
| - How much of an applications interface can be considered intellectual property? As a hypothetical case, if some new blogging service totally ripped off Bloggers interface, could it be called intellectual property theft? Any past cases you can cite? |
| Tue 21 Jan 20:15 | Anonymous | Yeah check out Pirated Sites |
| Wed 22 Jan 08:04 | Charlie Xavier | I think it depends on exactly what they 'copy'. If it's an identical copy of a program's interface, then there can be a good case for copyright infringement.
In the past Adobe has sued Macromedia for taking certain interface elements from their software. |
| Wed 22 Jan 16:36 | Lydia | How about Apple OS vs. Microsoft OS? |
| Wed 22 Jan 18:11 | Mark | In June 1990, a US district court judged ruled that Paperback Software unlawfully duplicated the interface of Lotus Corp's 1-2-3 spreadsheet app. For more see http://www.eff.org/Legal/Cases/Lotus_cases/lotus_v_paperback_decision.paper
I assume by 'intellectual property theft' you mean copyright infringement. IANAL, but in your example Blogger would have a strong case, assuming a Web service is considered the same as an standalone application. |
| Sat 25 Jan 17:54 | Stephen Downes | Well suppose some service copied Blogger's interface. What do you call Blogger's interface? Huge chunks of Blogger's interface have in turn been ripped off from other sources. Heck, Blogger ripped off its name from common usage. It's input screen looks a lot like the old Geocities input screen (it also looks a lot like my threads screen, which in turn looks a lot like the old Hotwired threads screen did). Do you say this company copied Blogger's interface, or do you say it copied from others in much the same way Blogger did?
People have to get over this idea. Companies are borrowing from the common pool of ideas all the time. Being the first to steal an idea doesn't mean you get to own it. |
| Sun 26 Jan 07:05 | Mike Lister | Users actually prefer fairly standard ways of doing something on a computer. They don't have to think. This was the strength of the Next computer interface (but it had other major weaknesses). Arguments that spring to mind over the years include obviously the 'trash can' Apple v Microsoft. Adobe v Quantel arguing about paint techniques and interface (this legal case lasted 8 years but although Quantel were the originators Adobe won). Recently Adobe v Macromedia on tabbed palettes spring to mind - neither company was first. Just like Apple and Xerox really in the early days of GUI. Even MSDOS copied elements of interface from earlier systems. All software builds on the interface concepts of the past and legal definitions of intellectual property with regard to interfaces hamper progress to make life easier for users. Don’t you think?. |
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| WebWord Posting | Fri 24 Jan |
| Why is it that white folks are just dying to be black and identify with these economically-disadvantaged artists (they emulate their language, dress, music) who themselves would love to have the opportunities that these bored, unappreciative white people enjoy ? |
| Sun 26 Jan 03:35 | sub | It's just fashion. Surburban white kids were 'dying' to be Grunge back in the early nineties, shelling out big bucks to Mall stores which sold faux Goodwill clothing. |
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| Ed Brill Weblog | Wed 22 Jan |
| For the last several years, Lotus has been at the forefront of online virtual communities, through notes.net as it evolved to Lotus Developer Domain (LDD) as well as other forums, extranet QuickPlaces, and Sametime-enabled web pages. Whats been missing, we believe, is an informal way to provide the Lotus management teams insight into current industry events, market trends, and updates on our strategy. Thus, the goal of this weblog is to extend some of the ad-hoc participation we already do on LDD and elsewhere. (Comments: What does this say about the utility of blogs?) |
| Sun 26 Jan 02:40 | daniel szuc | The success of collaboration depends on whether people are prediposed to 'sharing' information in the first place. See: www.kmcluster.com |
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| Self-service requires people to deliver full benefit | Sat 18 Jan |
| Many organizations see the Web as a self-service environment where labor costs can be reduced. Self-service and convenience are not always in sync. Where that happens, nobody benefits. |
| Mon 20 Jan 01:39 | daniel szuc | OK ... I admit it ... I need to attend some 'webword' induction and training courses :) |
| Mon 20 Jan 11:16 | Philip Chalmers | It's unfortunate that the article quotes e-banking as a case where human support is necessary. E-banking should be a natural for self-service. The difficulties my bank's e-banking presents are extreme slowness and bad design - I loathe it so much I'm thinking of switching. |
| Mon 20 Jan 19:54 | daniel szuc | Philip raises an interesting point or question. How much does the total 'customer experience' impact your loyalty? For example, you may get a good experience at the counter but an average experience online. |
| Wed 22 Jan 09:11 | Riekie Pask | Daniel Szuc we meet again! Since we last spoke my career has taken quite a turn and I have stumbled into the world of e-commerce! Have downloaded some of your articles on usability from Apogee and promise to read over the weekend. |
| Wed 22 Jan 15:38 | Mac | Daniel, you may be interested in this:
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| Wed 22 Jan 22:12 | John S. Rhodes | Wouldn't an official WebWord Conference be a hoot? Ha! |
| Sat 25 Jan 22:58 | daniel szuc | Magic :) Webword conference ... sounds good to me!
Mr Mucho Looto I will be in touch ... shortly ... mmmm ... dont call us, we will call you.
Mucho Thanko Expresso Groucho Harpo Chico Daniello |
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| User-centered Game Design | Mon 20 Jan |
| (microsoft.com) Deep gameplay involves bringing in cohorts of users in to play a product repeatedly throughout the development cycle and collecting qualitative data from them. The goal of deep gameplay is to provide fairly structured user-centered feedback on gameplay that occurs after the first hour of experience by supplying each team with its own dedicated game play team. |
| Tue 21 Jan 03:49 | sherlock_yoda | I think games tend to be more usable because they are based around perception and action rather than cognition. We are perceptual creatures and we find it easy/pleasant to evaluate things perceptually rather than cognitively. Games tend to be movement/action based, with one to one mappings between user actions and things on the screen. This makes habit formation relatively easy, which leads to automatic (pleasant) interaction.
Other applications tend to be about tasks/decisions/ideas - i.e. cognitive stuff. This is harder to learn and harder to form habits. There are often one to many ways of performing actions, which makes habit formation difficult.
Rather unelegant prose there, early in the morning...
Sherlock |
| Tue 21 Jan 18:35 | Da Mole | What's .doc format? You mean MS Word format? |
| Fri 24 Jan 20:25 | Lydia | Well, let's take the case of 'Black and White' - a game which was promoted partially by its focus on usability. Their interface was supposed to be more intuitive than most games that have a health meter, weapons selector, power-up tally, inventory, and so on. The truth is, it was clunky and hard to use and only the most dedicated or inexperienced gamer wanted to use it for any length of time.
For games, usability comes in the 'background' areas - games that allow you to customize controls so you can set up the same save, restore, inventory, and navigation buttons for all your games, no matter who the maker is. Or for games that have a built-in tutorial to help you get used to the different controls you'll have to use (No One Lives Forever, Medal of Honor, Max Payne, Oni, the list goes on). In this respect, games have improved greatly and make the user experience even better. As for gameplay, though, if it weren't for the awesome graphics, I might be more annoyed by the interface. |
| Sat 25 Jan 22:37 | daniel szuc | Give me a good pinball or Atari classic anyday. |
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| What Should I Do With My Life? | Fri 24 Jan |
| (fastcompany.com) Theres a way out. Instead of focusing on whats next, lets get back to whats ?rst. The previous era of business was de?ned by the question, Wheres the opportunity? Im convinced that business success in the future starts with the question, What should I do with my life? |
| Fri 24 Jan 17:40 | Nightly Periods of Unconsciousness | The equation is not always that simple.
Say I'm 25-35 and have a family. I can't afford to explore myself and pursue a career that will truly make me happy. I've got a family to feed; maybe a mortgage to pay. And my spouse has to be warm to the idea too. I can't afford to start over again.
Say I'm 45-55. I'm entrenched. I can't toy with the idea of leaving my employer and starting over again. New employers in my *current* field view me as old and tired. Employers in a potentially *new* field view me and old and tired and without experience. Plus, I can't nonchalantly throw away my retirement or go without health benefits in the interim.
An investment banker can afford to become a catfish farmer. Most of us do not have plush jobs and a fat balance so that we can entertain flights of fancy. |
| Fri 24 Jan 19:34 | John S. Rhodes | Posting Date: December 28, 2002 ;-)
(I thought this was a really good article. So, it doesn't bother me that MadMan linked to it also!) |
| Fri 24 Jan 21:14 | daniel szuc | Nice to dabble into things that your are passionate about even if you cannot do it full time :) |
| Sat 25 Jan 09:59 | MadMan | Well, I'm going to make a radical change in my career pretty soon. John already knows about it. I'm leaving the usability business to pursue something I've always dreamed about. It helps that I'm not married, don't have a mortgage, or any other major financial committments. |
| Sat 25 Jan 20:46 | daniel szuc | Another good usability person hits the dust.
Noooooo!!! *runs into the distance*
Seriously, wishing you all the best MadMan and pursue your dreams!
-Gamellian :) |
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| Dive Into Premium | Fri 24 Jan |
| A new and better way to experience the Dive Into empire! For only a few cents a day, you get fast, uncluttered access to your favorite Dive Into sites, with premium features available only to subscribers. |
| Fri 24 Jan 20:37 | Blaine | This is becoming more and more common, and more importantly accepted. As ad prices drop then high quality sites that have high quality content are going to be able to charge.
Why is everything on the internet surposed to be free? If I go on the internet to an e-commerce store I still have to pay for the item. People pay collages to 'teach' them. Its accepted that you have to pay for collage, because its 'collage'. In reality though we live in the information age and information is power. The more info you have the better you are. Do you pay for a daily morning newspaper? Why do you pay for that? Shouldn't it be free like the internet too? The newspaper is the same content as the internet, just a different medium. Should Office Max give away free software since its 'just' a CD?
Thats what I thought |
| Fri 24 Jan 21:28 | Su | I don't pay for newspapers. I steal my landlord's copy, which the delivery people keep bringing even though he moved out months ago.
And don't get your panties in too much of a twist. Read the bottom. |
| Fri 24 Jan 23:24 | Mark Pilgrim | He he. It's so much fun to chase my referrers and find out who doesn't read all the way through. |
| Sat 25 Jan 00:00 | MadMan | If you hadn't included the 'free porn' bit Mark, it might have been a trifle more convincing. :) |
| Sat 25 Jan 18:15 | Frank Lynch | I thought Blaine was only twisted about those who might argue that all should be free, not just diveintomark.
I signed up, by the way. |
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| Credit Card-Size Hard Drive Can Hold 5GB | Sun 19 Jan |
| A spinning wheel made of Mylar is engaged when the card is inserted into a StorReader, a USB-connected drive or PC Card that reads and writes to the StorCard. The reader is expected to retail for under $100 and the cards for under $15 each, Heil says. |
| Tue 21 Jan 10:25 | Joshua Kaufman | Does this mean the end of paper receipts? Wouldn't that be fabulous? If I wanted to return something, I could look up its receipt on my StorReader database on my computer then print it out instantly. Nice. |
| Sat 25 Jan 05:43 | daniel szuc | The smartcard still has so many good applications. Currently we use something called an 'octopus' card that was originally designed for all transport use in Hong Kong. Can still use 'money' but the Octopus card is just so much faster and extremely friendly. They have now extended its use to 7/11, Supermarkets and other convenience stores. I think the Hong Kong govt. will eventually merge the Hong Kong ID and the smart card concept.
See: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/200206/msg00012.html |
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| Getting Beyond the Banner | Fri 24 Jan |
| Forget about “awareness,” “image,” click-through rates, and ad unit sizes. As the Web matures, a single advertising issue will dominate all others. When the other distractions are pushed aside, we’ll find that advertisers face the same primary challenge as all other Web content producers: satisfying user goals. (Comments: Thank you Gabriel White.) |
| Fri 24 Jan 21:57 | Ron Zeno | Yeah, right. Just like all those other advertising media... User goals - no. Customer goals (those that pay for the ads) - yes. |
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| Desire: Connecting With What Customers Want | Wed 22 Jan |
| (Fast Company) Our whole socioeconomic structure is no longer just about manufacturing things; its also about selling ideas. (Comments: In the U.S. it really feels like there are two types of people: CEOs with golden parachutes and worker bees asking If You Want Fries With That or Welcome to Wal-Mart. The middle jobs, such as manufacturing, seem to be flying far, far away.) |
| Fri 24 Jan 21:13 | daniel szuc | A simple balanced life. |
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| Bar Code Tech Drives Nurses Nuts | Fri 24 Jan |
| (Wired) Nurses quickly learned how to hack the system to save time. For example, if a patients bar code didnt scan correctly on the first try, nurses often entered the seven-digit bar code number manually rather than rescanning it. (Comments: Thanks Bernard Chen.) |
| Fri 24 Jan 20:37 | Bernard Chen | The Veteran's Health Administration implemented a bar-code system to improve the timing and dosage of medication, but they completely missed the human angle in the implementation. The nurses don't like it and their response is, '...proper training and system upgrades could solve the problems revealed in the VA study.'
Blaming UI design errors and, at a higher level, product design errors on training is so easy to do, what will it take for the usability/HCI community to teach people not to think that way? The problem with the VA system isn't the complexity of the bar code machine, it's the processes surrounding its use. Someone needs to go in and change some of the validation parameters so the system isn't enforcing it's own behavioral preferences on the users. |
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| Dear Operating System Vendors | Wed 22 Jan |
| I no longer want to know where my files are stored. I no longer care. |
| Thu 23 Jan 10:50 | billy | Give me a break...what's so hard about organizing files into folders? And, am I always looking for one specific file whose name I can remember? No, sometimes I can't remember the filename, but I will know it when I see it...sometimes I'm just browsing through a folder in Windows Explorer...sometimes I know a filename but not which folder it's in, and vice verse...etc. |
| Fri 24 Jan 18:06 | Since 1894 | The author is on the right track. In lieu of saving files in folders, let me associate them with projects. I save my logo using Photoshop and associate it with my web project. When I start a new project I open the logo and associate it with my second project. Same file associated with two projects. I don't care where the file is stored. I want it to be there when I look at my project files.
Build the OS around a robust search engine for locating files and I'll be happy. I'm tired of Windows. Linux and Mac are no better. Our current OSes are like choosing between movies 1, 2 and 3 -- same actors and same script -- only the directors are different. Blech. |
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| WebWord Comment | Wed 22 Jan |
| Frank Lynch wants to know: Do readers owe their writer, or are readers merely butterflies? Why You Should Help This Site and Give. What do you think about paying for content? |
| Thu 23 Jan 02:34 | Mac | I Feel Shame.... |
| Thu 23 Jan 22:17 | Adam Greenfield | 'Information wants to be free, but writers like to get paid.' |
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| A Day of Protest Glance | Sat 18 Jan |
| A look at a selection of anti-war demonstrations Saturday in U.S. cities and around the world... (Comments: Here is a thought experiment. What would it take for the blogosphere to prevent war?) |
| Tue 21 Jan 18:39 | Da Mole | Talking to people won't do much. Many people think Iraqies were among the 9/11 terrorists. Most Americans are downright uninformed and would rather place all their trust in the idea that government can do no wrong, except with taxes. |
| Thu 23 Jan 06:31 | Mac | See you all on Feb 15 in a country near you. |
| Thu 23 Jan 13:57 | Mac | As I don't have a blog I have decided to put an ad against the war across the top of almost all of my web pages.
What do I do if someone doesn't want to see their image associated with an anti-war message? |
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| Micropayments part II | Wed 22 Jan |
| Theres no way to get around the basic problem with micropayments, which is that they ask somebody to perform the mental feat of deciding the value of something they havent seen yet. The only way to reduce that effort to zero is to reduce the price to zero. When things are free (or at least pay once and use as much as you like, like my subway pass), people dont have to make that decision. |
| Thu 23 Jan 02:43 | Mac | If you run a non-profit website you should be able to get some tax relief.
I don't like PayPay because they are middle-men who want their cut.
Why can't I automatically donate my amazon associate money to some 'good causes'. I would like to be able to funnel some of my pitiful earnings to my local prison so they could buy some books.
Where are the e-beggars? Surely they must have some good ideas.
As my Uncle says 'You'll get your reward in Heaven my son'. (Bugger that, I'm an atheist!)
Why not just abolish money, socialise everything and then it won't matter.
How about a big tax on warmongering to pay for this content?
You should be allowed to contribute content during work time so that you can be paid for it by your employer. (Please note: As you can see from the time on this comment, I am at home and NOT at work. So my employer is NOT subsidising this content). |
| Thu 23 Jan 08:17 | Eric Scheid | 'deciding the value of something they haven't seen yet.'
damn right.
That's why I only buy books I've already read at the library, and go see movies at the cinema I've already seen on TV.
(the real issue is: if you interpose a nuisance infrastructure demanding attention, then of course it will piss people off) |
| Thu 23 Jan 08:42 | Frank Lynch | I have long felt that the economics of the Internet are overly weighted against the content provider. Although search engines get ad revenue because users have faith that the search engines provide relevant results, once you take away web site content, the search engine's value goes away.
It would be my druthers that in most instances content providers were provided a usage based royalty, charged through ISPs, and this royalty would apply to all sites except marketing sites like Amazon (where there should be a relationship between traffic and sales). (Some sites, such as Consumer Reports might still choose to charge an additional fee for access.) The additional decision would then be required at sites that want to charge an extra, unless a user is scrupulously minding their behavior.
Although I am not king yet, I hope to one day understand why people would click on a link that is not worth a penny to them. Their time is more valuable. (And if that's a deterrent, well, maybe they will spend their time better? And I won't have people coming to my Samuel Johnson site when they are looking for sound bites of the actor Samuel Jackson?) |
| Thu 23 Jan 13:21 | Stephen | I thought the point of micropayments was that they were *micro* - so cheap that you don't even have to think about what you're being charged. It's not fifty cents for a page, it's perhaps 0.05 cents. Large profit-making publishers could do very well out of such a low payment while amateurs (and I don't mean that in a derogratory sense) would likely continue creating content for free for the same reasons they do now. For expensive, niche content I agree it's unlikely to work though. |
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| Scope Creep | Wed 22 Jan |
| (A List Apart) So, let’s augment our heresy with a new claim: clients can’t tell us what they want until they see it. That’s why they don’t tell us what they want up front. They can’t! And if they could, would they really need us? |
| Thu 23 Jan 06:43 | Philip Chalmers | Scope creep has several causes:
(1) The client didn't think of all the requirements.
(2) The requirements actually changed - legislation, market developemts, etc.
(3) It turned out someone else's wishes were important.
The solutions in the article mitigate type 1 scope creep, but it will never go away. In particular they deal with easily-visible features, and some requirements are less visible, e.g. response time, interfaces to other suystems, internationalisation, etc., etc. And of course you can never totally eliminate the risk that the client plain overlooks something.
But the tools mentioned are still very good ideas. |
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| Interview: Elizabeth Peaslee, VP, Customer Experience, Travelocity | Tue 21 Jan |
| One reason people get it is that everyone here uses the Travelocity site. Everyone can remember a time before we fixed project X: there was something that bugged me, and Im so glad we fixed that. Because people can personally identify with the frustration of a customer, its much easier to internalize the value of people focused on customer experience. (Comments: Eat your own dog food.) |
| Wed 22 Jan 01:33 | MadMan | Required disclosure: Travelocity is a client of Creative Good, Mark Hurst's company. |
| Wed 22 Jan 17:10 | JB | A small, yet significant point. |
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| Has Your Web Designer Ever Heard of Contrast? | Fri 17 Jan |
| It seems that more and more web sites, and not just small personal web sites, are switching from black to gray text. It sounds crazy, doesnt it? Why would you willingly make your text less readable? (MadMan comments: I think the blogging phenomenon was responsible for this trend.) |
| Mon 20 Jan 00:58 | Gary | Although none of you usability-ist seem to have much interest in tools that fix problems-- here's one for Internet Explorer users that's real hard to hate. It's a bookmarklet (save the link to your favorites) that pretty much takes care of most 'font' problems.
FontFixer
Ps. The 'Embossing Effect' link in the above post is also a save-able bookmarklet. |
| Mon 20 Jan 11:20 | Philip Chalmers | So an article about contrast is printed in black on grey! |
| Tue 21 Jan 08:52 | Anonymous | The theory I was taught for on screen readability is called 'the 70% difference'. So if you have a white background your text should be 70% black. Simple black text on white is very hard on the eyes.
Poor readability IS the designer's problem. |
| Tue 21 Jan 18:33 | Da Mole | How do you compensate for the varying default brightness levels on each monitor and the degree to which each user may have adjusted the brightness after sale? 70% of unknown is still unknown. |
| Wed 22 Jan 16:55 | Lydia | Gray text isn't a matter of usability. It looks cool. End of story. As much as we all love usability, we have to allow for the idea that some people want their sites to look cool. Granted, there may be some people who copy the idea and use gray text inappropriately, but I have seen cases where it is used well and looks cool (albeit hard to read).
As for usability, I prefer black text on a light, neutral background (like... um... gray!) as opposed to white. After a while, the white areas start to 'shimmer' and it hurts my eyes.
Bottom line: using gray text interferes with an optimal reading experience, but so far I haven't seen this used on sites that care about communicating content rather than design or overall experience/impression of the company. |
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| Hole In The Wall | Mon 20 Jan |
| (greenstar.org) What he discovered was that the most avid users of the machine were ghetto kids aged 6 to 12, most of whom have only the most rudimentary education and little knowledge of English. Yet within days, the kids had taught themselves to draw on the computer and to browse the Net. Some of the other things they learned, Mitra says, astonished him. |
| Mon 20 Jan 12:12 | Mac |
More Pictures here |
| Wed 22 Jan 09:43 | daniel szuc | Wonderful story! |
| Wed 22 Jan 13:24 | glasshaus Bruce | nice to read something *good* about technology. Glad y'all liked it. |
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| Uh-oh: Spam's getting more sophisticated | Tue 21 Jan |
| The most dastardly thing Ive seen so far... |
| Wed 22 Jan 10:09 | Anonymous | `A plan for spam´ would still catch it. |
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| My usability study is better than yours | Wed 15 Jan |
| (Register) It appears the methodology for this report did not include testing with real users. (Comments: Ill bet that the web sites in the report really do suck. However, since there is no data, the companies are probably quite upset by these professional opinions. Important question: Are usability people liable for slander if they make claims against companies and no data is available for support? Oh boy!) |
| Wed 22 Jan 09:54 | joe gannon | How can it be slander if the opinion is based on something you see. If I go to a web site and the text is hard to read, or if the page takes forgever to download, or has confusing labeling, I think I'm entitled to give my opinion as a user who has experienced it..period. |
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| WebWord Comment | Wed 15 Jan |
| (Disclaimer: This has nothing to do with usability.) The friction between the United States and North Korea is very serious. However, Im terribly bothered when news like this shows up. It is much too wag the dog for my liking. Are we supposed to believe that this hasnt been known for a very long time? MSNBC makes it sound like this is something new. Dont be fooled! These concentration camps are certainly not new. When I see stories like this I guess that I feel that the United States government is working with the media to manipulate public opinion. Perhaps Im too paranoid. But, if nothing else, MSNBC is acting as a willing puppet for the government to generate more page views. Listen folks, please think about why this is news now, and think about how reporting like this impacts the public, and how it benefits the media (increase profits) and the current administration (shape public opinion). |
| Tue 21 Jan 00:33 | daniel szuc | Very good philosophy Mac! Agree. |
| Tue 21 Jan 23:14 | Anonymous | (actual protest signs)
Bush is on crack-don't bomb Iraq
Drop Bush not bombs
Got oil?
Fight war, not wars
Endangering America, enraging the world
Let peace begin with we
Make hydrogen not war
Mommy Bush says 40 whacks if you attack Iraq
Screw an intern or screw the country
Say no to imperial addictions
Iraq is Bush's weapons of mass distraction
How many lives per gallon?
Don't misunderestimate war
Constitution? We don't need no stinkin' constitution
Oil is black, blood is red, hundreds of thousands of kids will be dead
Have some more pretzels George
Send kids to college not war
Osama Bin Forgotten
No conflagration without provocation
Draft Jenna and Barbara
Put the gun down, George
Regime change begins at home
Bush is a weed
GW-another empty warhead
Be all that you can be-don't go to Iraq
Will work for peace
The writing's on the sign Cowboy George, get off your high horse
Has anyone seen our constitution lately?
Who would Jesus bomb?
George, this is not your father's war
Stop wargasm
A village in Texas has lost its idiot
A Bush plus a Dick = screwed
No one likes a schoolyard bully
Axis of weasel
Hop in the sack, not in Iraq-make love not war
Hmmm-there's no oil in Korea
'What luck for the rulers that men do not think'-Hitler
Save the trees, remove the shrub
Who's sane?
'We have guided missiles and misguided men'-ML King |
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| Who Had the Worst User Experience? | Wed 15 Jan |
| (ClickZ) Let me offer three examples of companies that failed to deliver a good user experience during the holiday season. They failed through a lack of the basic abilities to do thorough design, implementation, quality assurance, and intradepartment communication. |
| Mon 20 Jan 15:25 | Mac | spoilsport |
| Tue 21 Jan 11:12 | Alan Fisher | By the way, Mac - Tesco failed to deliver the books I ordered by the date they promised, but they have now delivered them (3 days late). I think I'll give them another try. |
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